Put news on your website
You wouldn’t be terribly impressed would you if you turned on the BBC news tonight to be told that Labour had just won the 2005 election, the war in Iraq was over or that England has just won the rugby world cup.
Imagine then how a client might feel when he clicks on to a law firm website to see a newsletter page telling him that the government is thinking of introducing civil partnerships for gay couples, or a corporate manslaughter bill perhaps.
And then, just in case he hasn’t got the message that this is woefully old news, he sees a headline proudly boasting: last updated September 2004.
It’s easy to see how it happens.
Firms set out with the best of intentions. News updates are considered a must to make their website interesting to potential clients and for the first few months it all works out fine.
The partners and the staff are enthusiastic and provide the necessary stories, but then they run out of steam. The pressures of the day job as lawyers get the better of them and all the good intentions of keeping the site up to date are put aside.
It’s understandable but still regrettable because it reflects badly on the firm. You can hardly come across as top quality lawyers abreast of all the latest legal developments if your own website is out of date.
The irony is that it need not be a difficult to keep up to date if you’re systematic and follow some simple guidelines.
You can do yourself a massive favour by asking who the updates are aimed at. The answer, of course, has to be the client. Once this is acknowledged some basic principles fall into place. The first is that you shouldn’t write long, detailed articles full of legal jargon. The updates must be simple and get straight to the point.
Other lawyers might be fascinated by every subtle nuance contained in a legal phrase but the client most certainly is not. He just wants to know what’s changed what he is supposed to do about it. If your writing style is convoluted and hard to understand, the client is unlikely to read on and more importantly, he’s unlikely to consider you to be approachable.
The second crucial point to remember is that the update must be about something that affects people. If the new development is merely procedural, some shift perhaps in the way lawyers have to present a case or draw up a contract then forget it. No one will be interested.
Just tell people about things that affect them and leave them with the impression that they had better contact your firm for more details.
Good website content can go a long way towards differentiating you from all the other firms boasting the usual top quality, client based friendly service.
It’s strange how many firms will spend a lot of money to get to the top of the search engines but then neglect to provide anything worthwhile for the potential clients they’ve worked so hard to attract.
Good articles can help you do both. They make your site more interesting and they can also contain key phrases which help search engines assess where your site should be in the rankings.
Don’t overdo the key phrases though. While it’s good to attract people through search engines it’s not the be all and end all of the website. Some private clients might be prepared to go with you because your firm came top of the search rankings but it’s unlikely that many lucrative commercial clients would accept you on that basis alone.
The fact is that most people who visit your site will be people who already know about you. Your main task is to show them you are an impressive firm.
Once you’ve identified a good issue, make sure to provide regular updates as the story unfolds. A good example might be the story involving Arctic Systems and its battle with the Inland Revenue.
The man who runs the firm wanted to make dividend payments to his wife. Last year you could have reported that the Inland Revenue ruled that the payments should count against his tax and that the High Court upheld that decision.
In December you could have produced an update saying that ruling had been overturned by the Appeal Court. Then in January you could have provided another update saying the Revenue had decided it would try to take the case to the House of Lords.
This way you are providing a real service to your clients. They may want to contact you for more details. At the very least they will click off your site thinking it was worth the visit and there’s every chance they will come back again a few weeks later to find out more.
Of course, you can’t do any of this unless you have the technical ability to update your site. Thankfully, it’s easy so don’t listen to the web designers who tell you it can only be done by people versed in the dark arts of HTML. Insist that they do it for a nominal charge or better still, get a few people in the office trained up to do it.
Then you will able to update instantly at will.
And just as importantly, once the story becomes stale you can delete it and move on with the next one. News stories are just like buses. There’s always another one around the corner.
Don’t miss the chance to jump on and ride with it.
back to Solicitors Journal articles
This article first appeared in the Solicitors Journal.
Nick Kehoe is a former News Editor with ITV. He now runs Media Coverage, a company offering CPD accredited media courses and providing press releases and newsletters for law firms.
Contact Media Coverage, Suites 1-13, Imex Business Park, Shobnall Road, Burton on Trent, DE 14 2AZ.
www.media-coverage.co.uk Email: nk@media-coverage.co.uk.
Phone 01283 566270.
Media Coverage Ltd
Media Coverage Ltd is a leading provider of editorial and design services for law firms.
We produce high quality print newsletters, email newsletters, press releases and website articles for law firms across England and Wales.
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